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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30042702">any truer measure</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/hi_hello_hey_there/pseuds/hi_hello_hey_there'>hi_hello_hey_there</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>you don't have to say i love you (to say i love you) [21]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(well most of them), Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Good Parent Ray Molina, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Ray Molina Adopts The Phantoms, Reggie Peters Has Bad Parents (Julie and The Phantoms), Reggie Peters Needs a Hug (Julie and The Phantoms)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:42:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,706</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30042702</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/hi_hello_hey_there/pseuds/hi_hello_hey_there</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's two sugars, right?"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ray Molina &amp; Reggie Peters</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>you don't have to say i love you (to say i love you) [21]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942267</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>90</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>any truer measure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Requested by: blackandblue13! Thanks for your request (though it's slightly angstier than you were probably expecting.)<br/>Title comes from the quote "If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must be by what he gives" by Robert South.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The boys are adjusting to life and life at the Molinas’ swimmingly if Ray says so himself. With the help of the Pattersons, Luke, Alex, and Reggie are equipped with newly purchased cell phones and laptops for the past year of birthdays (or early birthdays in Reggie’s case), new clothes, and actual honest-to-god beds. They’re still living in the basement, but Carlos had the idea to hang curtains both to separate them from each other if they need it and to separate their sleeping area from the rest of the basement and laundry room. Mostly, they still use the garage as their go-to space but now it’s not so unusual to see Luke writing songs in the living room or Alex coming back from an outing with his mysterious friend that Ray has yet to meet and pouring himself a glass of water in the kitchen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ray is very pleased with the set up. Honestly, he thought it might have taken him little longer to get used to them being physically present in his house, but who is he kidding? He got used to ghosts living here and the only difference now is the water and electricity bills have gone up a little bit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Things have been strange in another way, though: they keep finding evidence of the boys’ existences past 1995. A photo taken of the three of them in third grade, previously dated April 1990, shows up amongst some of the Pattersons’ picture albums. One the guys swear Bobby had been in it. Birth certificates and doctor’s bills and school records and, most endearingly, adoption papers appear in Ray’s filing cabinets for Alex and Reggie alongside his children’s papers, the dates appropriate for them to be alive in the present day as teenagers. All in all, it’s a very strange time to be finding supposedly magical documents where there had been none before, but Ray supposes that it will make everything easier in the long run. Emily even gives up some important documents of Luke’s so he can stay comfortably with the Molinas.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After dropping off Carlos at school one day, Ray sits down with the boys, who had been using the kids’ time away from home to reacquaint themselves with the world and continue catching up on things they missed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Next year, I want you guys to finish school.” He barrels on before any of them can stop him. “I know you were planning on taking your certificate of sufficiency exams, but now that you’re here with Julie and you only have one year left, it might be beneficial to get back to something normal.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The boys are silent for a while until Luke starts nodding. “That sounds like a good idea, Mr. Molina.” Ray is shocked; he had thought Luke would put up the hardest fight. “My parents would really like me graduating for real.” And that was that. He and the Pattersons would enroll the boys at Los Feliz High School come fall for their senior year and in the meantime, they would take some online classes to supplement what they would have learned growing up the 2000s.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once everything is settled, they fall into a pattern. Julie goes to the high school with Flynn, Carlos to the middle school shortly afterwards, Ray would return home to edit or go out to meet clients, and the boys would have the day to work on their classes and anything else they needed to do. Then, after school and club meetings and baseball practice, everyone would be home for dinner, sometimes joined by Carrie, Flynn, Nick, Victoria, or any combination of the four, and homework. Rehearsal after homework and on the weekends, rinse, repeat. It was nice to have the big house a little fuller especially after Rose had passed and everything felt so empty without her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And as things tend to go, a hitch comes along. It’s one morning about a month after the guys have officially moved in and Ray is having a bad day. He woke up in a sour mood, a client whose pictures he had been working on for weeks now had backed out without paying, and, to top it all off, Flynn is sick and so Julie was late for school. He’s at home now, planning the next few days that he’ll have to be out of town for longer than one night and switching between a few different sets of pictures that need to all be done in three days. He is mere moments away from ripping his hair out at the roots when he hears shouts from the dining room. The boys are arguing over something, Ray can tell, their angry tones only getting louder and louder as time goes on. Usually, on the rare occasions when Julie and Carlos get into it verbally, he intervenes as soon as possible so they don’t say something they’ll regret. With the boys, however, he has no idea how they’ll react to him stepping in but he needs to get some work done.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he can’t take it any longer, Ray stands from his desk and pushes the doors to his office open, shouting out a quick, sharp, “Hey!” to get their attention. He hears a hush fall and when he reaches the dining room, the boys are all staring at him. Luke and Alex look like they were having a go at each other, faces red and chests heaving, but Reggie… Ray falters a little. Reggie looks like he’s on the verge of tears, his hands fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “I need to work so if you could keep it down or take it somewhere else, that would be great.” He hears the irritation leak into his voice but he’s said it already and doesn’t stay long enough to get a response.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He turns on his heal, closing the office doors behind him. A deep sigh comes out of him when he’s back in the confines of his space. For the next few hours, there’s silence, one that’s thick and permeates the whole house. It’s not even that quiet on days when the guys are doing their classwork but Ray gets the most work done he’s been able to since he took a short break to get everyone back on their feet. He doesn’t even realize how long everyone has been quiet until there’s a hesitant knock on his door. “Come in.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Reggie enters shyly, a mug held securely in his hands that he places delicately in front of Ray.<strong> “It’s two sugars, right?”</strong> It’s only then that he realizes the mug is full of coffee, the scent warm and inviting. Ray picks up the mug and instantly feels the tension of stress and sitting still for so long start to ease up. He takes a sip and over the rim he notices Reggie fidgeting with his bracelets and toeing the carpet nervously. He hasn’t looked up since he came in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“<em>Mijo</em>?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ray doesn’t have the time to ask what’s wrong before Reggie is interjecting, “Are you going to kick us out?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All at once, Ray feels his heart break and his anger kick into overdrive. He knows Reggie didn’t have the best home life growing up and that this house used to be his safe haven, but knowing that he even had the mind to ask that sort of question makes Ray want to make his parents sorry for ever putting Reggie in that kind of situation. He places the mug down before getting up and ushering Reggie into one of the vacant chairs, kneeling in front of the boy so he doesn’t feel intimidated. “No, of course not. It was an honest mistake. I was in a bad mood today and I didn’t mean to take it out on you three. I’m sorry.” Reggie still won’t look at him, so he places a gentle hand on his shoulder. “<em>Mijo</em>, you know you can talk to me about whatever you like, right?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Reggie finally makes eye contact and Ray can see the tear tracks running down his cheeks. “I don’t like fighting and usually when Alex and Luke have arguments, it doesn’t get that bad. But it started sounding like my parents and I wanted them to stop so I tried to break them up and then you came out and I went into fight or flight mode.” Reggie pauses for a moment to take a breath. They’re shaky and shallow but Ray doesn’t stop him from talking. “You know, I was reading about panic responses for one of my classes and it turns out there’s more than those two. There’s something called fawning where you try to people please, put others needs before your own and that’s what I’d do when my dad got mad at me. I would try to make it up to him before he got even angrier.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ray puts the awful pieces together and feels his heart break just a little more. “Is that why you brought me the coffee?” All he can do is nod and Ray gathers him up in his arms silently, letting Reggie know that he is loved here and that nothing he ever does would make Ray mad enough to kick him out. He knows it means nothing to say it, that his actions are the only way to convince Reggie that his security isn’t going to be compromised here. “Come on,” he says eventually, standing and drawing Reggie up after him. “Let’s get you cleaned up and then you, me, and the boys go get my other kids.” He can tell Reggie doesn’t miss his wording by the slow smile that covers his face. “Okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Reggie chuckles, dragging his shirt sleeve across his face. “Okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ray slings his arm around Reggie’s shoulders as they exit his office. He knows that there’s a lot of healing these boys will have to do, so much they all went through at such a young age that they’ll have to deal with. All he knows of the future is that they will be safe to do it under his roof, with him by their sides every step of the way. They are his kids after all.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I know exactly what you're thinking: Blue, are you ever going to make Reggie's interactions with Ray <em>not</em> hurt? And the answer is probably. No guarantees, but probably. I just finished atla and let me tell you, I wish I had seen it when I was a kid, so if you see some references to it in upcoming stories, you know why. Next week's story is very exciting to me as I continue to contribute to ships that not many people seem to either like/know about, but what is writing if not my own headcanons persisting? Prompts are open folks! Take a gander at this here <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tCxiQlteIPqeeWAFPTOIkFVvqNKZ7RhXiYrZiES6efw/edit?usp=sharing">google doc</a> to see what's still available. Drop a comment here or message me on tumblr with requests. I love you all very, very much and have a great week!</p>
<p>main: <a href="https://hi-hello-hey-there.tumblr.com/">hi-hello-hey-there</a><br/>side: <a href="https://toziers-token.tumblr.com/">toziers-token</a></p>
<p>love, blue</p></blockquote></div></div>
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